JD.com Is Planning Drone Deliveries In Japan

JD.com is constantly working to improve the experience of their customers and logistics is one of their main areas of focus. While Jingdong is the largest retailer throughout all of the country of China, they are expanding their footprint to other countries throughout Asia. One of their latest expansions includes Japan in which they are looking into new delivery systems that are unmanned. These unmanned options allow JD.com to deliver important goods to people in more many different areas very quickly without having to worry about trucks getting stuck in traffic.

While coming up with these delivery options is a big task for Jingdong, they are teaming up with Rakuten in order to complete the task in a timely and feasible manner. Some of the unmanned solutions that JD.com and Rakuten are working on include delivery robots and the drones that Jingdong is so well known for. Rakuten is also known for its delivery services in Japan that utilize drones. With Rakuten’s delivery drone knowledge in Japan and JD.com’s state of the art apps for shopping, this collaboration is set to bring some big things and great shopping to Japan.

Rakuten first began using drones for delivery back in 2016 and officially launched their program in 2018. They have gained a good amount of experience in the area already and are excited to be working with Jingdong. With Rakuten’s knowledge of delivering via drones in Japan and Jingdong’s high-tech shopping methods, the partnership should be able to get products to customers throughout Japan quickly and with minimal problems. Both companies have great track records in countries which should mean great things for their unmanned logistics.

While JD.com began working on their drone delivery program in 2015, they didn’t begin implementing it until 2016. Since then, their drones have upwards of 400,000 minutes of time in flight and this number keeps growing as they continue to make deliveries throughout China. Their program has had a lot of success in China especially in urban areas which can be difficult to deliver to because of congestion. Drones allow Jingdong to bypass the traffic on the congested roads of China’s cities.